Thanks for the translation! I find that passage hard to understand as well, but one thing I'm sure of is that the traditional US college curriculum was classical, not professional. Perhaps he meant that the colleges were no longer getting enough qualified students for that program, so (from a business POV) they made up for this by shifting their emphasis to providing pre-professional training. In the early 20th century, the professional schools were becoming more exacting about their entrance requirements. There's a catalogue here, from 1920, that gives some examples. As for junior high, there were two competing movements around this time. To put it very simply, the "middle school movement" said that children in early adolescence should be treated as large elementary students. The "junior high movement" said that they should be treated as smaller high school students, with specialized teaching, rotation between different classrooms, and possibly some electives. This served mainly as a training period for the new structure of high school. There was originally some hope that the junior high model would allow the brighter students to move ahead, but that idea didn't last long, due to the egalitarianism that's been part of American educational thought since the beginning. Outside of Catholic circles (which were closer to the European model), few people were in favor of tracking children before high school age. Even tracking in high school was, and still is, controversial. The effective result has been to kick the can way down the road, so that the US college admissions process is a massive (and often mystifying) exercise in tracking. I'm really not sure this is effectively any more "democratic" than systems that sort the children at age 10-11, but provide some pathways to cross over at later ages. Have to go now; will be back later to offer some paltry thoughts about the rest. 🙂

Happy Epiphany! I haven't finished Chapter 1, and don't know if I'll get through it today, so will start with the prefatory material. Feel free to talk about the first chapter as well, if you like. The book has a Latin inscription that starts "Magistris Artium." LostCove, or someone else whose Latin is better than mine, maybe you can translate this? Then the introduction raises several interesting points. First of all, Father Donnelly says that PJEP can serve as a supplement to two other recent books on the subject. 1) "For history, (...) for theory and for a fine and complete bibliography": Fr. McGucken's The Jesuits and Education (Bruce Publishing, 1932) 2) "For sources and early documents": the text of the Ratio Studiorum and Constitutions edited by Edward A. Fitzpatrick (McGraw-Hill, 1933) The Stanford Copyright Renewal Database doesn't turn up any references to either of these titles, so they appear to be in the public domain. The scanned copies at Hathi Trust are all locked down as if they were still in copyright, though. I've had success in the past asking them to "free" non-renewed books (though it took a while), so maybe one of us could try writing to them. Archive.org now has a copy of the Ratio book, and is making it available for one-hour borrowing. This is a big improvement over the previous situation, as the book is unavailable second-hand, and there are only a few copies in libraries. Fr. McGucken's book is being sold in a reprint edition, albeit a bit pricey. We have a copy around here; I'll try to find it. In the second paragraph, Father Donnelly explains that his book focuses on the six-year program of the lower schools, which he maps onto the modern high school and first two years of college. This would be roughly ages 14-19, a big difference from the older practice of teaching this curriculum at age 11-16 or so. This seems to have been a very recent shift. US Jesuit academies in the late 19th century were still enrolling the younger boys, going by the characters in Fr. Finn's stories. And the more drawn-out approach doesn't seem to have caught on, as the remnants of the Jesuit system unraveled rapidly over the next few decades. This isn't surprising, as it's unlikely that most parents, or students, wanted to prolong the period of higher education. From what I've read, the later start was due to the wider expansion of the public and parish school model (thus delaying the start of Latin and Greek), and also to the introduction of more modern subjects. But I'm not sure which of these was more of a factor. In our time, if families or schools started early, and had the resources, could they follow the 11-16 plan? Would Father Donnelly's resources work for this? The last paragraph recommends the educational writings of the Irish Jesuit Father Timothy Corcoran, including Studies in the History of Classical Teaching (1911). I'm skeptical of Father Corcoran's views on early childhood education, as he was a very harsh critic of Montessori, and was also the leading force behind a national Gaelic-immersion preschool program that seemed to be motivated more by nationalism than by sound pedagogy (especially as most of the teachers had limited knowledge of Gaelic). But everyone has their blind spots. The book does seem worth reading.

I guess it's still Christmas for a few more days, but maybe that's not the definition you had in mind. 😄 Let me know when you'd like to start. Although I'm looking forward to the discussion, I'm also sort of unsettled about it, because it's going to remind me of all the methods and content that I'm not currently able to use in our homeschool. At the same time, I'm very much aware (as 8FilltheHeart posted years ago) that the restoration of traditional classical education has to be a group effort. And over the holidays, I've become increasingly ticked off with the neo-classical education establishment and their apparent lack of interest in such a restoration. I'm not speaking here about people like SWB, who focus on providing practical methods and resources to educate children. The ones who are getting my goat are the "Education Guys" (and they are all guys, from what I've seen) who operate consulting services, hold conferences, and generally pontificate endlessly about the meaning of classical education, with no real qualifications and apparently no historical awareness of the subject. The Great Books and Sayers/Buckley models, and their spin-offs, have become their livelihoods. The number of such self-appointed experts seems to be growing every year. And the awkward part is that the men in this crowd portray themselves as the underdogs. And maybe they are, when compared to the College Board or whatever. But to me, they are the big guys. I'm not sure whether or not it would be appropriate to confront them directly, e.g. when they say something erroneous or misleading on social media. I haven't felt comfortable doing this, both because of the underdog factor, and also because I've found that a lot of men on social media are not happy to engage with women. Certainly not all men, but a lot, especially in more egghead circles. And it's interesting that this seems fairly evenly split across "liberal" and "conservative." Meanwhile, on a local level, most of the homeschoolers I know do some version of "classical education," at least in part. And none of them have any awareness of the history of all this. My limited efforts to explain it have gone nowhere, as it's such a vast and unfamiliar subject. Even if I could manage to get the basic ideas across, probably most of these women (quite sensibly) are only interested in methods they can use, right now, to educate their own children. And I can't really offer them that. So, what can I say... I have issues. 😉 All in all, it's got me feeling quite isolated and stuck. I'm hoping this reading will help me to see some way to move forward, either with my own family, or with putting some of these ideas in a form that can be communicated to others.

I hope your husband-convincing project is going well! 😄 A book discussion of PJEP would be great. There are 26 chapters. Do you think we should try to follow a schedule, or just take as long as it takes?

Just found a tidbit in the booklet Home Instruction: A Growing Alternative to Public Schools by Jim Buchanan, which can be previewed on archive.org. It was published in 1984 by Vance Bibliographies. It has a brief introduction about the history of homeschooling in the United States up to that point, and then the rest of the book is a bibliography. Almost all of the items are magazine articles about homeschooling from the 1970s and 80s (some of which might be worth reading in their own right), but page 8 has this entry: "Lynch, Ella Frances. Educating the Child at Home. New York: Gordon Press, n.d." It's interesting that her book is the only pre-1975 resource on the list, and that it's undated. Was this an edition that was published in her own time, or a later reprint? I also wonder how the bibliographer found out about her. Maybe he just looked in the library catalogue? But then there's that brief quotation from her in the Clarksons' Educating the Whole Hearted Child, which has always made me wonder if her books were known among at least some of the pioneers of the homeschooling revival.

I had a good time taking a mini course in journalism at that age. Just basic things like the 5 W’s, how to interview people, and how to write a story. Maybe they could make a page of a newspaper with Christmas related articles? Could be real (e.g. phone interviews with relatives about what’s going on with them) or made up (e.g. news from Santa’s workshop). Around the same time, I signed up for an in-school elective class in which the teacher played us songs (mostly older folk type stuff) that had very evocative lyrics, describing a character, event, or scene. We discussed what the songs called to mind. Then we each wrote a story that was kind of a spin-off of one of the songs, and turned it into a script. Pre-written skits and dialogues can also be fun, but I’ve had little success finding ones for two children, apart from resources intended for ESL teaching.

That does seem like the best of the current options, but I don’t entirely trust the risers. My children seem to have a knack for injuring themselves (or others) when playing around tables. Will have to think about this some more.

Thanks to both of you for the suggestions. I should have specified that the minimum width I’m looking for is 2’. There are some pretty narrow ones on the market. The Children’s Factory one above could be used as a table if we came up with a different cover. But then we’d end up with a large table that’s too short for most of our children. Still, it might be okay for outdoors. We don’t plan to use it for water, so maybe one of those dining tables that holds jigsaw puzzles could work, if we applied a sealant. But I seem to recall those being very pricey.

I don't know much about the history of her schools, but it's my understanding that she founded the first one in Atlantic City in 1907. Re the liturgical movement, we'd probably have to look at back issues of Orate Fratres. I think it's in the EBSCO Religion database, but I don't know how to get access as an individual. Paper copies also seem scarce. I've been hoping for years that the archives would turn up online, in a format that was at least searchable (if not viewable), but it hasn't happened yet. Archive.org has a few issues from the 1920s and 50s, but there seems to be no mention of EFL in those. I've been looking through the Mahoney book, and it's a very interesting collection of essays and other biographical material. He was a scholar and humanitarian who taught in the Boston public high schools for 26 years. It was said that he didn't rise higher in the school system because he refused to cultivate connections with the textbook companies. Apparently the "book racket" had additional dimensions back then!

I'm looking for a sand table, at least 4' long, with a cover that allows it to be used as a regular table. An indoor/outdoor model would be preferable. I've hunted around for a while, but the educational suppliers and toy companies only seem to have much smaller ones. For example, this picnic table would be ideal, if it were full-sized or even big-kid-sized: https://www.allroundfun.co.uk/outdoor-play/sand-and-picnic-tables/plum-sand-and-picnic-table Has anyone seen such a thing for sale? I've found plans and videos explaining how to DIY, but that's not going to work for us at the moment. I'm hoping to have this as a surprise gift for Christmas.

I did come across Stephens' book recently, but haven't looked at it. Thanks for the suggestion!

Searching archive.org for "League of Teacher-Mothers" turned up a few additional references that don't include EFL's name. The longest is a paragraph in a 1975 book by Wood Smethurst, Teaching Young Children to Read at Home, which might be available to preview on the site. (For now, anyway. There's a lawsuit ongoing over whether or not they can "lend" a scanned copy of a physical book that they own.) The information is as follows: "The League claimed seven thousand members and had an illustrious Advisory Committee that in 1923 included, among others, the then-current U.S. Commissioner of Education, as well as a former U.S. Commissioner of Education, the superintendent of the Pennsylvania schools, the headmaster of Penn Charter School, the editor of The Journal of Education, a former president of New York University, and the superintendent of the Atlantic City public schools." Smethurst says that the League sold Educating the Child at Home to interested parents for $1.50. They also sold "a complete kit with instructions, a four month supply of practice paper, and 'Bookless Lessons for the Teacher-Mother'" for $5. Would "practice paper" be lined paper for the preschool and primary years? I've been wondering what sort of line spacing she recommended. ETA: An article about Dr. Wood Smethurst (1933-2015), by all accounts a wonderful teacher himself. May he rest in peace.

I looked into the history of the "Burk plan" a bit more. Much of this doesn't relate directly to EFL, but I find it of interest because Normal Instructor seemed to equate the two methods. Burk's version of events is that he developed the system of individual instruction used in San Francisco. It was mostly original, but was influenced somewhat by the Pueblo plan (a complicated, expensive system that was proposed by Preston Search a couple of decades earlier). Later, some of the teachers who trained under him, such as Carleton Washburne, left and created spin-off versions elsewhere. Washburne and Marland's book on the Winnetka plan gives a different account. They point out that the experiment at the SF State Normal School was initiated by Mary Ward, a teacher trainer who specialized in arithmetic. She and her student teachers were trying various methods to accommodate different rates of student progress. Around 1912, they ended up giving the children individual assignments, which the teachers then saved and re-used later with other children. I haven't been able to find out whether or not Ward had heard of EFL's schools at this time. It does seem somewhat likely, as EFL was already well-known enough in 1912 to be presented as an expert on education in a major magazine. (BTW, this reminded me that we know of at least one article by EFL that precedes the LHJ series: "The Bright Child" in Psychological Clinic, October 1910. It includes an overview of her thinking on education, and some information about how her schools were run. For instance, she specifies that a teacher works with each child for 40 minutes per day, then dismisses the child to work independently for the rest of the day. I think the younger children must have had less time, at least at the Mountain Lakes school, as that would work out to more than 8 hours of teaching, not including the group reading of literature.) It seems that Burk's main contribution to the SF plan was to supervise the compiling of the teacher-created assignments into workbooks. All of the earliest workbooks were meant to be used with textbooks, but some of the later ones were designed to stand alone. He was also very interested in data regarding student progress, IQ testing, and other quantitative concerns. Washburne came into the picture after the method had become established. His degree was in physiology, but he had taken a job as a public school principal in Southern California because he was out of work. As an outsider to education, he thought the system was ridiculous and started doing his own thing, which included letting students progress at individual rates. The following year, he was put in charge of a special education class, where he used similar methods with success. He became frustrated, though, when the superintendent told him that he couldn't use these methods with normal classes. At this point, he read Burk's "Monograph A: A Remedy for Lock-Step Schooling" (which I haven't been able to find). Washburne wrote to Burk, describing his experiences and asking for help in finding a suitable job. Burk invited him to come to San Francisco and supervise the teacher training for elementary science. For the first three months, he was apprenticed to Mary Ward, who taught him how the system worked. He then developed an elementary science curriculum from scratch, using two methods: 1) identifying common phenomena that need to be explained, and classifying them by the scientific principles involved, and 2) writing down children's questions and classifying them. While his lengthy description of the origins of life on Earth probably wouldn't have gone over well with EFL (or even with later science), his overall attitude seems relatively sane for an educationist. The introduction to Common Science (1920) explains how this textbook was used with the individual method. Washburne is best known for his complete overhaul of the school system in Winnetka, Illinois, which is described in many standard works on the history of education. Like Burk, he relied heavily on prepared, "self-teaching" workbooks, with standardized tests used to determine placement. Apparently he took this even farther than Burk did. I guess we could see the Winnetka experiment as the progenitor of something like "ACE Paces."

We had our first meeting of the family literary society this week, though we're calling it something different. The youngest recited poetry, and the middle ones gave reports on assigned topics that were related to their lessons. We've gone back to doing chronological history and literature, which fits well with this approach, since we're all more or less on the same page. I told the older ones that they could choose what to do - report, recitation, music, etc. - but they didn't come up with anything in time, and were kind of embarrassed about the whole idea, so I'm going to assign them topics for next week. I think they'll adjust. One of my middle children is already coming up with ideas for what to do in future weeks. It just occurred to me that the early 20th century practice of "special reports" might have grown out of the tradition of the literary societies. It turns out to be legitimately useful, as it allows all of the students to hear a little about topics that we didn't get to in our formal studies. It also seems like a relatively interesting and motivating approach to "school type composition." I've always had an aversion to the idea of assigning medium or long papers that aren't going to be read by anyone but me. On a different subject, even though my secondary students aren't following a traditional classical curriculum, I've decided to make special efforts to teach the humanities in a way that shows the value and importance of this curriculum. This includes: - reading selections from Latin and Greek classics in noted English translations, correlating them with the literature and history of the time of the translation, and learning about the translator's education in the classics - noticing classical allusions (where we can), and learning to use old and new reference materials to learn more about these - recognizing the use of classical rhetorical techniques (again, where we can), and practicing these on a limited basis, even if we don't do a comprehensive rhetoric course - occasionally reading pieces (fiction or non-fiction) that contain references to classical education itself, so we can discuss the characteristics of the curriculum at different times and places, and how and why it stopped being available - for American history and literature, looking especially at the influence of the Aeneid and Plutarch's life of Cato the Elder. (I suppose this comes under the heading of "classical reception studies," but that's a broad term that implies more erudition than we need.) If I can't graduate children who have a classical secondary education in the historic sense, I hope to at least graduate children who understand its meaning and significance, and how they might go about pursuing some aspects of it in the future. I hope to do something similar with the traditional philosophy course. But that's for another thread. As I said in the EFL thread, my capacity for abstract thought is limited. And my new supply of pencils just arrived. Ahhh, pencils. 😄

Here are the articles by Frederick Burk. Burk was the president of the San Francisco State Normal School, and Normal Instructor described him as a leading progressive educator of the time. January 1917, part 1 and part 2 February 1917, part 1 and part 2 March 1917, part 1 and part 2 April 1917, part 1 and part 2 In 1912, Burk wrote a series of articles on education, which ran in the Ladies' Home Journal right after EFL's. (She wrote on elementary schools; he wrote on high schools.) In 1913, he started the experiment in elementary schooling described in the above articles, which sounds a lot like her system. But as far as I can tell, he doesn't mention her at all. This is very fishy! Maybe the later article was an attempt to redress this.

From the Normal Instructor article on the Mountain Lakes school: ----- [The public school was set up in a house, in which the teachers lived in two rooms and the kitchen.] The other bedrooms, the dining-room, the living room with its cozy fireplace, and the large veranda were our schoolrooms. In place of desks, we had chairs and tables of various sizes. There was not much to make the place attractive, but it was at least an enjoyable change from the ordinary schoolroom. We had twenty-five pupils, from beginners to sophomores in high school. Of course, Individual Instruction was impossible if all of the children were present at one time, so we arranged a schedule that would keep us busy from eight till four, and assure a sufficient degree of Individual Instruction for each child. The younger ones remained in school one hour in the morning and one in the after noon, while those of the grammar grades or beyond satisfied the State requirements by coming from eight till twelve, with the understanding that if their work was not satisfactorily done, they would return in the afternoon to finish it. Our plan of instruction almost entirely eliminated the recitation. The time of each student was spent in study, with such help as he needed, and no more, for the mastery of his subject. It was gratifying to see how naturally the beginners took to this method, and how correspondingly difficult it was for the boys who had been used to idling one half of their time in the recitation to settle down to continuous conscientious work. We tried always to have each child put the most time upon the subject which most needed it. There were no bells to say when work on one subject should end, but study of that subject lasted until there was some logical reason for ending it. We did not attempt to teach all the branches outlined by the State syllabus, but undertook to lay a strong foundation in reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic. We abolished entirely examinations and the marking system. In their place, we substituted the rule that every child must do an honest day’s work every day. When this was accomplished, he was allowed to go home. All written work was done in note books, and dated, and became an intelligent and accurate record of the pupil’s progress. Promotion came daily or as often as the child was ready for it. It did not depend upon a mark, but upon the mastery of a subject. No one was kept back for another. No home work was given unless a child asked for it; in short, it was our aim to make the school a place where no artificial stimulus to interest was needed. (...) No pupil failed to do one year’s work. Progress was more rapid with the beginners, none of whom failed to do two years’ work, as measured by public school standards, and several accomplished three years’ work in one. [Story of progress made by a 14 year old boy, known as a troublemaker, who started the year illiterate] [Story that EFL also told, about 3rd and 4th graders learning Marc Antony's oration from Julius Caesar] [Story of an 18 year old girl who had left high school out of boredom, but became a dedicated and eager student at the school of Individual Instruction] [The school building doubled as a community center; it was used for Sunday School, church service, and sometimes for the local literary society.] The life of the teachers was a strenuous one, physically, mentally and morally. But no amount of extra effort is ever felt by a teacher who knows that it is appreciated, or sees some of the results of her service. In many, many respects, the experiment in Individual Instruction at Mountain Lakes might have been improved upon, but we were cheered at the end of the year by the words of the county superintendent who said, "I wish I were young again. I’d go out and devote my life to this work. ” EDITOR'S NOTE: For the benefit of our new subscribers who may be interested in the subject of Individual Instruction, we call attention to a series of four articles by Frederic Burk published in this magazine January-April, 1917, with title "Individual Instruction versus the Lockstep System."

The Internet giveth and taketh away, once again. I did some searching and found several EFL-related post-1923 books and articles that have been made public, likely because their copyrights were not renewed. There are also some earlier ones that I haven't seen before. The Editor, 1914 - announces that the Pictorial Review will run a series of articles by EFL on the rebuilding of the school system (starting in the March issue), and will give a $500 prize to the best constructive criticism of her ideas. I haven't been able to find any libraries that have those issues of the Pictorial Review itself, though. ProQuest has some, but only up to 1906. I guess, as a popular illustrated women's magazine, it wasn't considered a serious enough publication to archive. 🙁 A Course in Methods of Arithmetic by Sister Mary Eberharda Jones, OSF (1926) - makes reference to EFL's arithmetic methods Latin Notes, v. 1-6 (publication for classical teachers, from Columbia University, 1923-29) - has some information about her Latin method, and a sample exercise from an 8 year old James Mahoney, 1865-1915 - self-published by his sister Nellie; has a little bit about the early years of the "teacher-mothers' movement," and a reminiscence of Mahoney from EFL Fortnightly Review, Dec. 1931 - article by EFL, "Why Parents Go Wrong," identifying pitfalls in the child-rearing advice of the time Fortnightly Review, Mar. 1932 - condensed version of the article about EFL from La Civilta Cattolica (by the conservative Jesuit Fr. Mario Barbera), which was reprinted by The Wanderer Catechetical Sermon-Aids by the Most Reverend Joseph Schlarman (B. Herder, 1942) - quotes EFL on discipline a few times; I wonder how many sermons she made it into!

I just noticed that Angelicum Academy is basing their geography curriculum on the online National Geographic archives. They have the archives listed as a resource each year, from 3rd through 12th grade. We have back issues of the magazine on DVD-ROM, and geography is an important subject for us, so I'm interested in seeing how they use them. In the sample lessons for 5th grade, there's a "National Geographic Test," but the test questions are about 20th century history (e.g. Lenin's role in communism, and the causes of the Vietnam war). In the 11th grade, there's a lesson plan that has the students read articles and answer questions about topics in medieval history. It seems from this that they're using the magazine articles as a history supplement, rather than as a geography curriculum. Is this correct? Or do they do any substantial geography work with the archives?

I don’t know the answer to this, sorry. My children have generally done better with independent work at 11-12 than at 13-14. This certainly isn’t universal, but it is a pattern that others on the boards have described. Often they’re just goofing off, but I think another factor is that adolescents tend to be more socially motivated. In the classroom, the spirit of “emulation” was a way of keeping the students alert and avoiding the need for punishment. The family literary society could help with this. PJEP (which I need to re-read) says that extensive reading was handled via the “academies,” which were basically literary societies. Another thing I’ll say is that children need to learn how to recognize when they need help, and how to ask for help. This is important at home, and will be even more important when they do any sort of outside classes. It also depends on the subject matter. Math is fairly conducive to independent work. Literature and composition are not. I haven’t ended up teaching classical languages at the secondary level, but I think those need more involvement too, especially of course if you’re trying to use the more traditional methods.

Having the same feeling here! At least my children who were under age 7 when I discovered EFL do seem to be very observant and attentive. It might just be coincidence, but it could also be due to the various "educational" things I stopped doing. (It's less likely to be due to the EFL-ish things I've started doing, as they've been relatively few and far between.) I'm just loath to let the middle children start using the Internet, because that seems to have been an overall hindrance to the older ones. Maybe they can use it when they're, IDK, 30? Feeling kind of Plato-ish on this subject. 😄 I look forward to keeping the discussion going, though it won't be the same without the missing person(s). 🙁 Here's something I've been wondering about: How did EFL teach the older students in her "schools of individual instruction?" Her anecdotes on this subject might be our best available resource for understanding her approach to upper elementary and high school. This might relate somewhat to your question in the Fr. Donnelly thread, about finding the right balance between teaching and independent study. It's also worth noting that students joined her schools at various ages, and she still got reasonably good results with the latecomers (albeit usually more slowly). So perhaps her advice in this area might be relevant to those of us who've started late, or haven't been entirely successful in implementing her ideas at the primary level. An article in the New England Journal of Education (1915) , about the experiment with individual instruction in the Oakland public schools, says that the method of EFL's schools is "well known." I can't find any articles from that time about the schools themselves, though. Are they just talking about the bits she mentioned in Educating the Child at Home? Or was this some sort of grapevine thing? Here's an article in Normal Instructor and Primary Plans (1917) about the school in Mountain Lakes. Has this one been posted before? Only have time to skim it right now, as it's past my bedtime, but it looks interesting. And here's the entire 1912 Ladies' Home Journal, which had multiple articles by EFL, as referred to in that article. It sounds as though there might be some that we haven't seen before. Maybe one of us can do some digging.

A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and others The Children's Book of Christmas Stories (Doubleday, 1913) Old Christmas from the sketch book of Washington Irving

It turns out that some of our high school literature textbooks have more varied non-fiction selections. One 9th grade book from the 1960s (edited by Fr. Maline, SJ) includes excerpts from George Bancroft on the Battle of Bunker Hill, Bruce Catton on the Battle of Spotsylvania, and Churchill on the Bismarck. The corresponding exercises don't include imitation, or even close analysis of style, but at least we can be sure that they were studying all of these passages as literature. Some excerpts from Catton's histories will certainly go on our "intensive reading" list, although we might not get to the Civil War this year. As for what to do with this list, I've decided that unless any other information turns up, I'll just look for short passages that could work with some other narrative topics, as Father Donnelly does with Irving in Model English. This would be more for English credit than for history, though.

With the recent account deletions, we lost at least one long-time poster on the EFL threads, along with all of her posts. Several related threads are gone as well. I'm gathering the links to the remaining ones I can find. Please share any others. The search function on this site, and Google search, both seem to be unreliable at present. 2014 Comparison of EFL to the Bluedorns - Addressed to Hunter, who had been posting about various "old-school" approaches. (Hunter, if you're reading this, it's great to see you back on the boards!) Big thread #1 2015 Ella Frances Lynch arithmetic A small thread about scheduling, or maybe about not-scheduling 2016 Big thread #2 Not sure if this is related to the deletions or the search problems, but I can't find the thread that mentions the 1940 liturgical conference in which Mary Perkins Ryan recommended EFL's Orbis Vivus Latin booklet. It also had a description of a disagreement between Dietrich von Hildebrand and a church architect who was at the conference. This seemed to me to be related to 20th century trends in Catholic education, in which (supposed) medieval ideals were being promoted over Renaissance ones. I hope that thread turns up. Over here, we're gradually getting back to doing more EFL-ish lessons. This is going fairly well, but it's not leaving me with the capacity for sustained thought about psychology or educational theory. So the comparison of traditional methods to perceptual control theory might have to wait a while.

Good to see you that aren't among the lost, Cove! 🙂 A couple of possible books I've found are Cardinal Newman's Historical Sketches (Church history; has some narrative parts), and Paul Horgan's The Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History. Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples also looks good for style, although I haven't read enough to decide about the content. I agree that we can use suitable excerpts from many works, though, even if they have other parts that we find inappropriate. This is one of the delights of traditional classical methods. (Plunder those Egyptians!) Father Donnelly's speech raises a lot of questions about what the student is supposed to do with a given passage. Is he suggesting that they do a close imitation of the structure and style, as in Model English, but writing about a different historical event? In that case, I'm doubly unqualified. I could perhaps manage it if we only used a sentence or two at a time. Or made the history part up. 😄 It would help to have examples of this method being followed in practice, or even evidence that it was followed somewhere. We have several early 20th century anthologies of prose models for composition courses, including two with SJ connections (one from Boston College, and one from Fr. Husslein's series), and while they contain many examples of narrative writing, none of those are from history books. One Canadian anthology does have a narrative excerpt from Sandburg's biography of Lincoln, which would seem to qualify on grounds of literary recognition, but this raises larger questions about style. Would Father Donnelly have recommended sticking with "classical" English models, or using more contemporary examples as well? I'm inclined to think the former. I'm also not sure if Sandburg, however brilliant, was really someone to copy. Is the whole idea of "imitation" even compatible with modern literature, with its emphasis on distinctive voices and innovative techniques? In elementary and early high school, we were sometimes told to imitate poems by Sandburg and other modern poets, but that usually meant just writing free verse on a similar theme. Here's something I found in a book of criticism online: "When other writers try to imitate Hemingway's dialogue, the result is a poor parody: his discovery was not a key to a new method, but something deeply individual and inimitable." These questions are getting too big and making my head hurt, so I'll probably just stick with the authors listed at the top for now. Especially since I'm not even sure what to do with them.

A few more notes: - In a past thread, we talked a bit about the transitional years between high school and university, somewhere in the range of ages 15-18, which still constitute a definite stage in many systems (e.g. sixth form college, Leaving Certificate, lycee, CEGEP, IB). This corresponds more or less to the latter part of the traditional college course. I don't think we can avoid introducing university methods in this age range, unless our children are planning on doing something "out of the box" for post-secondary education. Perhaps we can avoid putting those methods front and center, though. - For early modern world history, our core text for this year is The Modern World by Frs. Betten and Kaufman, SJ (1919). It seems like an adequate overview, and it also lists many supplemental books, all of which are in the public domain. Even if these aren't recognized classics, some of them do seem worthy of imitation. I've found some possibilities among newer books as well, though this is proving to be a large investment of time and mental energy. - I'm also looking at mainstream early 20th century recommendations for teaching history, to get some context for Father Donnelly's advice. There are many references to "special reports," which are mentioned in The Modern World as well. I wonder: were these oral or written reports? Were they mainly factual, or more analytical? Did all students do them, or were they a form of differentiation? How often were they usually done? And, of course, what role would Father Donnelly have given them in the curriculum? It seems to me that a well-done oral report could provide additional interest for the class, and a written report could develop the student's writing skills, both of which would be in line with the goals he describes. In this way, the supplemental books could do double duty. We could assign shorter passages for close study and writing exercises, and larger sections, or even the whole book, for reports. - They did a lot of geography along with the history. One teacher suggested that, instead of having each student make their own tiny maps, individual students with some drawing ability could make large maps to display in the classroom. Another author (or maybe the same one?) also recommended using a sand table in the junior high history classroom, to act out battles, etc. (The use of sand tables in education will be a familiar subject to those who were following the EFL threads a few years ago. 🙂)